New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez is hardly a sure thing this season

APThe Jets Mark Sanchez is a second-year quarterback of a team with Super Bowl aspirations.

The final chance to put a positive spin on his preseason had been thrown, fumbled and kicked away.

The New York Jets had gone through full three quarters of football, scoring just three points on offense, before Mark Sanchez tossed a 10-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dustin Keller early in the fourth quarter, then called it a night.

For Sanchez and the Jets’ first-team offense, the preseason was over after that third game against the Washington Redskins, and neither the second-year quarterback nor his unit had done anything in roughly six quarters of football to indicate this would be a different offense than the one that careened through an inconsistent 2009.

A lot of the highs and lows last season could be attributed to Sanchez, who was impressive early before falling into a midseason rut, bottoming out with five interceptions against Buffalo and four more against Miami.

As the defense dominated over the second half of the season and the run game rolled on, Sanchez rode the wave into the AFC Championship Game and into an offseason of optimism.

Coming out of the media and football powerhouse at Southern Cal, Sanchez was a perfect fit for the New York cauldron, a good-looking, polished guy with a Jeter-ish quality for speaking a lot while saying very little. While coach Rex Ryan scribbled Super Bowl dreams on buses, Sanchez was more circumspect during training camp.

“You want as competitors to get back there and go even farther and prove that we’re a better team this year,” said Sanchez. “We’re a team that can make that next jump. We know that everyone has to be accountable to do that.

“I think the most important thing is to remember that you don’t start off in the AFC Championship Game. Everybody starts with a clean slate, 0-0, you have to earn the playoffs. We have a lot of work to do, a lot to prove, and we’re ready for that challenge.”

The player with the most to prove is the quarterback.

A year ago the Jets led the NFL in defense and rushing, and still almost missed the playoffs, which would have been a historic first, and a very Jet-like milestone to set.

In a case like that, look at the quarterback. Sanchez threw just 12 touchdowns against 20 interceptions during the regular season, but packed those 20 picks into just eight games. He was an all-or-nothing kind of show, but you could never tell which QB would show up.

Now it’s time to find out if that was a typical rookie QB’s acclimation — plenty of big-time quarterbacks have looked worse in their first year — or if this is who Sanchez is.

The Jets have done everything they can to give Sanchez plenty to work with. They traded for high-end receivers Braylon Edwards and then Santonio Holmes, and picked up LaDainian Tomlinson to give Sanchez a veteran safety valve coming out of the backfield.

“He’s got such great vision,” said Sanchez. “He’s got such great feel. He knows when I start moving, to kind of shadow me and find the open lane and that’s what he does. It makes it easy when you have a guy like that.”

Except that when the Jets rolled out the new-and-improved look in August, nothing looked easy at all.

Things started out fine against the Giants. Sanchez went 13 for 17 for 119 yards while playing into the second quarter. But the next two weeks, against Carolina and Washington, were a disaster for Sanchez and the first unit. The touchdown pass against the Redskins gave the first-team offense a total of two touchdowns in 18 possessions and more turnovers than scores.

“Any time you don’t play the way you want to, it’s always a good reality check,” said Sanchez after the game. “But I think it’s too early to tell, way too early to tell, what our identity is on offense.

“At times, we need to help our defense out. Give them a blow. Because they get tired out there when we give the ball right back to the defense. We need to be a lot sharper. That’s what these next two weeks (before the season opener) will be about. It’s got to happen soon.”

The season won’t be a referendum on Sanchez, or at least it shouldn’t be. Some quarterbacks take time to get it all together. But for all the defense and rushing yardage, the season, what the Jets make out of it, will come back to him eventually.

“I just feel like we need to realize our potential a little bit,” said Sanchez. “Just be the things we say we’re gonna be.”